Quick Start Guide — Resolve

This guide is for Neat Video v4 plug-in for OFX hosts being
used with DaVinci Resolve 12.5.

If you use another version of Neat Video, please check its documentation.

1. Installing the plug-in

To install the Neat Video OFX plug-in:

Make sure you have started Resolve at least once before installing the plug-in. If you
have not done that yet, start Resolve and exit it.

Download the installer of Neat Video for OFX hosts:

If you already purchased the product and have a current license for the Pro plug-in,
please download the Pro plug-in from
My Products page

If you want to try Neat Video before purchase, please download the Demo plug-in from
Download page

Start the installer:

For Windows:

Double-click the downloaded EXE file to start the installer

For Mac OS X:

a. Double-click the downloaded DMG file to mount the volume
b. In the mounted volume, double-click NeatVideoOFX.Intel.pkg to
start the installer
(you may be prompted to enter the Name / Password of the OSX
administrator account)

For Linux:

Double-click the downloaded package Neat VideoOFX.Intel64.tgz to
open the archive and extract the installer from it (
NeatVideoOFX.Intel64.run )
(you may be prompted to enter the Name / Password of the administrator account)

Proceed through the steps of the installation process. Use the default settings offered
by the installer. This should automatically make the plug-in available to Resolve.

Start Resolve and in the OpenFX panel of the
Color page of Resolve go to Library > Neat Video >
Reduce Noise v4.

In case the plug-in has not become available in Resolve, please contact
Neat Video support for assistance.

2. Running Neat Video on a sample video clip

Please download the test-kit prepared to
help you start using Neat Video. Having downloaded, please unzip it to a new folder on the
hard disk.

The test-kit includes a sample video clip: SampleClip.mp4. This
is a typical video clip captured by a digital video camera in high-gain mode. Some
technical information about the sample clip is available in the
SampleClipInfo.txt file.

Please start Resolve and go through the steps below to clean the clip using Neat Video.

2.1. Add the sample clip to the project

1. Configure a new project in Resolve

Go to Preferences to set up the Media
folder where all media files are stored:

Resolve will then display a Media Storage dialog to specify the
folder where all media files would be kept:

2. Add the sample clip file to the project

Navigate in the Media Storage panel
to the folder with input clip, select SampleClip.mp4:

Drag-n-drop the input clip into Master panel.

If Resolve says “The clip(s) have a different frame rate than
the current project settings” and asks “Would you like to change your
timeline frame rate and video format to match?” select
Change.

3. Add the sample clip to the timeline

Click the Edit button in the bottom.

In the Timelines panel move the mouse pointer inside the
Project area and right-click in that area. This will open the
popup menu.

Select the Timelines > New Timeline… item in the
popup menu:

Click the Create button:

A new timeline (V1, A1) will
appear:

Drag-n-drop the clip from the Media Pool tab to the timeline
(to V1):

The Resolve preview window will display the sample clip and you will see that there is
strong noise in it. The task of Neat Video is to reduce this noise.

2.2. Prepare to add Neat Video to the clip

Click the Color button at the bottom.

Use the timeline controls to select a frame with large flat featureless area; the
selected frame will be used for analysis in the next stages.

Make sure the (fx) OpenFX button is
pressed (to display the OpenFX panel).

2.3. Configure Neat Video

1. Open Neat Video plug-in window

Drag-n-drop Reduce Noise v4 to the node of the clip in the
Nodes panel. This will enable the
Settings tab in the OpenFX panel.

Click Prepare Noise Profile in the
Settings panel to open the Neat Video plug-in window.
(If you run the Demo plug-in, click OK in the popup splash
screen of the plug-in to proceed further).

The Neat Video plug-in window will open and display the current
frame from the clip:

At this point Neat Video will ask to specify the scan type of the clip. Please select
Progressive.

2. Build a noise profile for the clip

To reduce noise in this frame and in the whole clip, Neat Video generally needs a noise
profile describing the noise properties of the clip. You can prepare such a profile using
the Auto Profile function:

In the Device Noise Profile tab
click

Neat Video will then automatically analyze the noise to build a new noise profile:

Visually inspect the selected area — it should contain no visible details,
only noise; otherwise the noise profile and subsequent noise reduction may be
inaccurate.

If the selected area does contain any details, move the selection to a featureless area or
simply draw a new selection in such an area (the selection must be at least 32x32 pixels
large). Then click the Auto Profile button again.

After that Neat Video is ready to filter the clip.

3. Check Preview

Switch to the Noise Filter Settings tab

You will notice that Neat Video has already applied noise reduction based on the default
filter settings and the preview shows a clearly visible difference: there is less noise
than in the original frame.

You can try to adjust the filter settings and see how that affects the results. For
example, try to adjust the Temporal Filter > Radius
setting (in the Temporal tab in the Filter
Settings box in the right part of the window) from 2 to 1 or to a higher value. This
will apply weaker or stronger temporal noise reduction to the frame.

Note that current and previous versions of DaVinci Resolve (except Resolve
Studio 12.5) do not provide adjacent frames required by Neat Video v4 to display them in
the main window of the plug-in. Those missing frames are marked with "N/A" in the
thumbnails shown in the main window of Neat Video. This does not affect rendering in
Resolve, this only affects the preview inside Neat Video window. The current (central)
frame is still provided correctly, so it is possible to build a noise profile and check
preview of some of the filters inside Neat Video. To evaluate the complete preview
including results of all filters, it is necessary to Apply (to close Neat Video window) and
then check results in Resolve preview.

4. Apply the changes

Click
in the bottom of the plug-in window.

Neat Video will save the current settings and close its main window.
(If you run the Demo plug-in, it will also describe the limitations of the Demo version at
this point).

Once this step is completed and Neat Video window is closed, the
filter is ready for work.

The Resolve preview window now shows the clip with noise reduction applied to it:

2.4. Render the video

To apply Neat Video noise reduction

Use the output of the ReduceNoise v4 node in your project
further.

You can now use the output of the ReduceNoise v4 node in your
further workflow within the project. The noise reduction is automatically applied to the
video data produced by that node.